Getting Our U.S. Documents Authenticated by the Philippine Consulate General Honolulu

Banner at the Philippine Consulate General Honolulu - Photo Taken in August 2011

As part of applying for a slot in a Philippine Medical School, prospective foreign students are required to submit additional documents compared to their local counterparts. Examples of such documents include a police clearance, an Affidavit of Support / bank certification, a photocopy of the data page of one's passport, etc. These documents need to be authenticated by the nearest Philippine Consulate General - in our case, it would be the one in Honolulu, Hawaii. According to the Philippine Consulate General Honolulu's website, "Any legal document issued in the U.S. must first be acknowledged or authenticated ('consularized') by the Philippine Embassy / Consulate General in order for that document to have any legal vailidity in the Philippines."

Before I proceed any further, allow me to share a disclaimer--that I am by no means associated with any of the organizations listed in this blog post; I am only sharing my personal experiences and findings regarding such a process. Therefore, it is prudent to visit the official websites of these organizations directly to get the most up-to-date and accurate information.

Thanks to the Internet and Google, I was able to do some research re: the Philippine Consulate General Honolulu's requirements on how to get documents authenticated by going to the "Consular and Other Services" section on their website. From there, select the following link from the list of services on the left: "Authentication / Acknowledgment". You'll find specific procedures for various documents, i.e. private documents (Power of Attorney, Affidavit, etc.), U.S. Government-issued documents (birth certificates, passports, etc.), and business-related documents.

We were able to get a photocopy of the following documents authenticated by the Philippine Consulate General Honolulu: U.S. passport, birth certificate, and Official Transcript of records. We did have to pay a $25.00 fee per bundle. I only paid for one bundle since I was able to unintentionally consolidate my documents upon submission; my husband had to pay for three bundles since his documents were not consolidated.

So, how exactly do you consolidate documents?

Well, before you present any documents for authentication to the Philippine Consulate General, here in Hawaii, you  must follow a two-step process. Thankfully, from what I was told, the Philippines participates in the Hague Convention, which, I believe, contributed to the elimination of an additional step that would otherwise make it a three-step process. Assuming that I had been informed correctly, the Philippines acquired this participation only recently. Because of this participation, I was able to skip the step that would involve going to the State of Hawaii First Circuit Court, Legal Documents Section. The two-step process in Hawaii, then, would be as follows (provided that the documents will be used in the Philippines--it is very important to note that the process differs by country):

1. Have all documents notarized by a duly commissioned Notary Public of the State of Hawaii
2. Request an Apostille from the Office of the Lt. Governor of the State of Hawaii

Yes, in that order.

What is an apostille? Actually, that's the same question I asked when I first heard of the word while researching this process. According to the Office of the Lt. Governor of the State of Hawaii's website, apostilles "certify only that a document has been signed by, and bears the seal and stamp of, a duly commissioned Notary Public of the State of Hawaii. An apostille does not validate the substance, contents, and/or legal effect of the document, nor that the document has been approved and/or endorsed by the Lt. Governor, the State of Hawaii, or any court of competent jurisdiction".

So, you must still be wondering how I was able to "consolidate" my documents (while my husband was not). Again, this was unintentional, yet it is still an interesting finding to note. Hence, here is my explanation...

When I went to a Notary Public to get my documents notarized, the Notary decided to consolidate my documents by adding a cover page that listed all of the documents that I attested to be a true copy of the original. As a result, my documents were consolidated into only one bundle. In contrast, when my husband had his documents notarized by a different Notary at a different time, the Notary stamped each and every one of his documents; thus, they were not consolidated and therefore had to be processed as three individual documents.

After getting our documents notarized, I went to the Office of the Lt. Governor of the State of Hawaii to have the documents apostille'd. The clerk attached one apostille to my one bundle, while she attached three apostilles on each of my husband's notarized documents. It only cost us $1 per bundle. It normally takes one week to get an apostille request processed, however, we did a walk-in application and got our apostilles on the same day. Please note that when I arrived in their office, no where did it state that walk-in's are guaranteed same-day processing.

Once the apostilles were granted, we went to the Philippine Consulate General Honolulu to get our documents authenticated. Since we had a total of four bundles (and each bundle cost $25), we paid a total of $100. We were able to pick-up our authenticated documents the next business day.

So, what does a document authenticated by the Philippine Consulate General Honolulu look like?

From my mere observation, the Philippine Consulate General Honolulu attaches an official cover page to each of our bundles, it lists all of the documents enclosed therein, and it possesses the original signature of the Officer (in our case, the Vice Consul). Notably, there is a round grommet on the top left hand side that goes through all of the documents, from which a red ribbon extends to bind all of the documents in one bundle, together. After which, a golden seal (sticker) is affixed on top of the red ribbon.

Since we're discussing this topic, it is also important to note that the process is slightly different for birth certificates issued in the State of Hawaii. In order to obtain authentication for such a public document issued by the State, we had to visit the State of Hawaii Department of Health Office to specifically request for a birth certificate that is intended for use in the Philippines. Failure to specify this information will result in obtaining the "regular" copy of your birth certificate. The process for obtaining an "international" copy of one's birth certificate takes longer; it can only be notarized by the State Registrar of the Department of Health and must contain his / her original signature. Then and only then can the birth certificate get apostille'd by the Office of the Lt. Governor of the State of Hawaii and subsequently authenticated by the Philippine Consulate General Honolulu.

Depending on one's perspective, the process can get quite lengthy and expensive -- especially when you do not have the specific documents in hand. There are so many "pre-requisites" that have their own lead times. Of course, you wouldn't be able to read about this in most (if any) websites of Philippine Medical Schools catering to foreigners. All they tell you is that you need to get the documents authenticated by the Philippine Consulate; from there, you must do your own research, due diligence, and lots and lots of legwork. For me, it was quite challenging logistically as I always had all three children in tow (which includes our very strong-willed infant)!

Now, we are waiting to do our police clearance. We plan on doing a walk-in application tomorrow (if that's even possible). Otherwise, it seems that we would have to apply online--and instead of being satisfied with an online printout of our report, it may be better to just get the official copy in the mail. This copy would contain the department's embossed seal; perhaps we should also get the report certified / notarized for an additional $20 each, bringing the total fee for each report to $50. I'm hoping that the Office of the Lt. Governor of the State of Hawaii would affix an apostille to the certified / notarized version, so that in turn, the Philippine Consulate General Honolulu would agree to authenticate it.

Lots of administrative things to do, and school starts in June already. We haven't even submitted our application yet; evidently, we are still waiting on a few things. Once we have all of the documents prepared, we plan to send them via FedEx International Economy, which takes about 3-5 days, and costs approximately $65, according to the FedEx Office attendant.

We hope we can send these documents off to the medical school of our choice so that we can finally have our interview; and, if all goes well, we'd each be confirmed a slot to study medicine in the Philippines!

The task of preparing for the physical move is daunting; quite frankly, we are looking forward to it!